To Isabella Stewart Gardner
C/o Brown Shipley & Co.
7 Bennet Street
St. James’s
London, England. Feb. 20, 1912
Dear Mrs Gardner,
It was very good–and like you–to remember me at the moment of my loss. I was then at Windsor with Howard Sturgis, a most sympathetic person, who had learned to esteem my mother from his father, always a most devoted friend of hers. As you probably know, my mother had lost all her mental faculties long before the end, so that our loss has been gradual and the final part of it almost a relief, though not on that account less momentous to us in its finality.
I didn’t attempt to say good-bye to you before my departure partly because it is supposed to be only temporary and partly because it is not natural to say good bye to a person whose charm and influence is always with her friends, wherever they may find themselves. You have always been the bright spot in my Boston.
Your grateful friend,
G Santayana
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Two, 1910-1920. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston MA